STORY ARCHIVE

Missile Defence Shield

With Australia's role in the proposed US National Missile Defence System in question - this is a timely report on the science behind missile defence.

Australia is one of only three countries that strongly supports the US's National Missile Defence system (along with India and Poland). We will even have part of the system on our soil at Pine Gap. The defensive shield won't cover us - it's purely for America - so we ask: why is Australia supporting it?

Some say a missile defence shield is irrelevant since September 11; these days there are far greater threats to the United States than Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. And the American Physical Society, the organization that represents that country's physicists, claims the shield is unlikely to work anyway.

TRANSCRIPT

Narration: The enemy has launched a nuclear attack on New York City. An Intercontinental Ballistic Missile streaks up into space. Within half an hour it will have re-entered the atmosphere, plummeted down and flattened Manhattan Island. There's nothing America can do about it.until now. An early-warning radar picks up the missile and is tracking it. A military base on a tiny Pacific atoll is notified. They've got minutes to get things ready. This is New York's only hope.a new type of defensive missile - a Hit-to-Kill vehicle.

It's a challenging mission. It not only must get to the enemy missile while it's still up in space, it must be deadly accurate.it's going to take out that warhead by nothing more than crashing into it. Will it work? New York has been saved. These people are cheering because this was a successful test run of America's proposed National Missile Defence System.

The US military's saying it will be the solution to America's security problems. With defensive hit-to-kill missiles dotted around its territories, and an expansion of its early-warning radar and satellite systems, they say they can put a protective umbrella right across the country.

But America's physicists claim such a shield could be just too complex to pull off.

Professor Francis Slakey: There are problems with the system. There is no scientist worth their salt can guarantee that National Missile Defence can work.

Narration: The politicians are pushing ahead anyway and looking for support from their allies. Our government is a supporter of the missile defence system - indeed Australia's one of only three countries outside the US that is (the others are India and Poland). We'll even have part of the early-warning system on our soil at Pine Gap. Now we're not going to be covered by the protective umbrella, so the question is.why are we supporting it?

Senator Robert Hill (Minister for Defence, Australia): We don't toe the line! What I've said is we understand why the United States feels it needs a new form of defence against a rogue state launching a ballistic missile against it.

Dr Ron Huisken: It's China and Russia who are adamantly opposed. The Japanese are squeamish I guess. The European allies have asked some pretty profound questions."

Narration: Most of the world is concerned that America's missile defence shield might accelerate the arms race.

Professor Francis Slakey: If china increases it's arsenal in order to overwhelm whatever ballistic missile defence system we happen to have deployed, India is going to respond to the increased arsenal in China because India's arsenal 's in part directed against China. If China increases its arsenal India will have to increase its arsenal. Well, if India increases its arsenal Pakistan will increase its arsenal and now you've got a domino effect. And what we've tried to work on for the last 20 years of arms control is to try to make things go in the opposite direction.

Senator Robert Hill: We think the chances of that are much less than they once were. The strategic environment the threat environment has significantly changed since the end of the cold war.

Narration: A relay station at Pine Gap will be part of the Missile Defence system. It will relay data from satellites that detect the first signs of an enemy missile launch. Will it make us a target?

Senator Robert Hill: The important thing we believe is that we maintain a strong alliance. That means that we cooperate with a principal partner the United States where we can support it in its security concerns.

Narration: But politics aside, the American Physical Society - the body that represent s that country's physicists - says the National Missile Defence project is even unlikely to work. Everything hinges on the little vehicle sitting in the nose of that booster rocket - the hit to kill vehicle. It's what shoots through space once the booster's been discarded. It uses its onboard radar and thrusters to manoeuvre itself to make a direct hit with the enemy missile. In a controlled test environment it performs well but in the real world the enemy will have taken countermeasures.they might release 100s of decoys along with the warhead. And the hit-to-kill vehicle will have to very quickly work out which one of them is the real target.

Professor Francis Slakey: The problem with the system is you have one interceptor per target so if it's unable to tell the difference between the decoy and the warhead then the likelihood of it working is just pure chance. And the Pentagon knows that this counter measures problem ..this decoy problem is a very serious problem.

Dr. David Martin: In our own offensive forces for the last thirty years we have looked at decoys and counter measures. Have developed and tested ah... these kinds of counter measures, know what their signatures look like so we believe we have a very good understanding of the phenomenology associated with this system."

Narration: The military researchers have conducted tests were there is a single balloon decoy. Three out of five were a success, but Slakey says they aren't realistic.

Professor Francis Slakey: A global positioning system is placed on the warhead so that it follows the predetermined trajectory. The size and the shape of the decoy is known ahead of time and programmed into the interceptor. The infrared signature of the decoy and the warhead is known ahead of time and programmed into the interceptor and a homing beacon is put on the warhead and that information is transmitted back to the interceptor. And then finally the whole thing is happening at one third the speed that's needed for real combat situation. So does it work? Well if the enemy where to tell us when they are firing where they're firing how they're firing, what they're putting inside the missile, the nature of their decoys and for good measure they put a homing beacon in. then the system has a 60% chance of success."

Dr. David Martin: You actually have a lot more instrumentation than you would normally have in an operational system. But this is all part of a normal testing environment and very commonplace on not only our own systems, but with a lot of military systems when they begin to undergo their first levels of testing.

Narration: In a real war situation only the far more limited Patriot missile defence system has been tested.

Professor Francis Slakey: The patriot missile wasn't successful in the Gulf war in the early statements from the Pentagon they claimed considerable success with that system but then when the data was analysed later it was discovered that at best of the dozens of patriots that were shot at the scuds during the Persian Gulf, at best, one or two actually hit the target . And it's even more likely that none of them ever hit the target.

Dr. David Martin: But it's important to recognise it was a capability that we were still in the development stage. So in fact had not had much chance to ah ... work with it operationally."

Narration: If the notion of a National Missile Defence System sounds familiar, of course it is. Just go back to 1983.

Former President Reagan: What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest on the threat of instant US retaliation to deter a Soviet attack. But we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our soil or that of our allies.

Narration: Dubbed Starwars it was a far grander project than the current one. It would have orbiting satellites equipped with high-powered lasers for shooting down enemy missiles. Trouble was, those lasers hadn't been invented then and still haven't been developed. And Starwars wasn't the first; antimissile projects have been around since 1946. But since September 11, is missile defence even relevant any more?

Professor Francis Slakey: There are people out there that are evil beyond measure. They will use whatever means are available to them to attack us and they won't reveal themselves. Which means they are going to try to duck under our defences and they're going to try to punch us in our soft spots. They are going to go after our food supply, they are going to go after our water supply, our communications network, our energy grid. They are going to come after us in trucks and aeroplanes and suitcase bombs and what that means is National Missile Defence offers no protection. NMD will be the most elaborate defence against the least likely attack.